The University of Hawaiʻi (UH) John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) does more than educate and train doctors. It has partnered with University Health Partners (UHP) of Hawaiʻi (UHP) to focus on ways to positively impact healthcare in our state. HI Now host Jobeth Devera is joined by the school’s dean, Dr. Jerris Hedges and CEO of UHP, Larry Shapiro, to talk more about the projects the two organizations are working on jointly.

JABSOM is currently collaborating with insurance providers, healthcare institutions, non-profits and advocacy groups to accomplish its goals of education and helping Hawaiʻi Attain Lasting Optimal Health for All, or ALOHA, which is the shared vision of our college of medicine and its nonprofit healthcare services entity. We seek to achieve that vision as well through some unique features of the school’s M.D. program, including our Problem-Based Learning curriculum and Community-based medicine program. In these programs, in addition to standard clinical instruction, students become accomplished while training within UH-JABSOM affiliated community hospitals and clinics.

Students from the start are thrust into the real world of day-to-day clinical activity. Working directly within the community involves extensive participation of community physicians and other health professionals in the training of future physicians which strengthens local relations and statistically improves the likelihood that graduating physicians will stay and practice here in Hawaiʻi .

University Health Partners of Hawaiʻi (UHP) supports the medical school in the creation of new physicians. The non-profit organization’s primary purpose is to be the vehicle by which JABSOM fulfills its dual mission of education and clinical service. UHP provides expertise, administrative services, organizational infrastructure and roughly 210 support staff to directly support the 160 medical doctors who engage in clinical care while also doubling as the medical school’s faculty to train and educate future physicians.

The ongoing clinical schooling conducted at UHP training sites helps medical students and medical residents while advancing the ability of JABSOM teachers, who are also doctors, diagnose and treat health issues that most commonly impact the citizens of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. In other words, UHP serves as the faculty practice plan for JABSOM.